


antediluvian

by unconventionaled



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F, Pirates, isabela is mentioned but dn show up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4844018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unconventionaled/pseuds/unconventionaled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once they're done in Kirkwall, piracy is an option.</p>
            </blockquote>





	antediluvian

**Author's Note:**

> Set like... idk late ish in act III.

“Do you want to be a pirate?”

At first Merrill thought she must have heard Hawke incorrectly. Neither of them were the most linear of thinkers, often presenting ideas apropos of nothing, and possibly in the middle of an unrelated conversation. Hawke leaned against her crossed arms, eyeing the ceiling contemplatively. Only when Merrill failed to answer did she look sidelong at her. “Vhenan?”

Hawke’s adoption of elven words was a new development, and her pronunciation more than often atrocious. Still, it never failed to stutter in Merrill’s chest, so that she ached with the volume of her love for this woman. There wasn’t enough space in her for all that she felt. 

“I hadn’t ever considered it,” Merrill finally answered. “Why? Do you?”

Hawke shrugged, back to looking at the ceiling. “I’d never thought of it before.” She grinned up. The edge of her smile glinted the same as the edge of her blade. “Isabela asked if I wanted to take to the sea with her.”

“What did you say?” This was always the hardest part. Merrill could hardly help but compare herself to Isabela. Swaying, teasing Isabela, who drew everyone in with the slightest of words. Next to her, it was baffling that Hawke wanted Merrill.

“I said not without you, of course.” Hawke flopped onto her side, reaching out to draw Merrill down beside her. Merrill settled on the forgiving mattress, one arm tucked beneath her, the other hand tangled with Hawke’s. “So she said I could bring you along.”

Merrill let herself imagine it, the three of them aboard Isabela’s ship. In her mind, the deck held steady, unlike the pitch and sway of the journey from Ferelden where she could hardly stop being sick. Hawke perched on the railing, constantly threatening to pitch into the deep, and Isabela stood at the helm, doing… well, whatever it was pirate captains did. If the crew got bored, Hawke could always arm wrestle them. Since it was her imagination, she skipped over the issue of the Eluvian, her fear that she might infect the woman she loved and her best friend all in one. To risk herself was acceptable, but Merrill reviled the idea of endangering either Hawke or Isabela. Her burdens aside, she imagined the look of freedom on Hawke’s skin, golden and more captivating than the touch of the sun on the ocean. They’d always be laughing.

“We’d have to leave Kirkwall.” She meant so much more than that, more than she knew how to say, but the shadows suffusing Hawke’s eyes said she understood. 

Hawke reached out. Merrill fit snug beneath her strong arm, her lips a breath away from the swell of her bicep. Merrill squirmed, freeing the arm trapped beneath her body. Her palm settled just above Hawke’s heart, thin fingertips resting against her neck. They matched each other. Like she could meet Hawke’s eyes even when her own were closed.

“I don’t think we can stay.”

Merrill waited.

“Kirkwall feels… heavy, these days. Not like when the Qunari were here.” When Merrill nearly shattered watching Hawke fight the Arishok. “The way Lothering felt before the darkspawn came. We were all just… waiting. And we couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Do you think we can do anything about this?” Merrill was as heavy as Kirkwall, drowning in a tide of spilled blood. Before… before, she thought things could be changed. Now... Perhaps there was no such thing as good at all. Perhaps there was just choice, and doing your best. 

“I think it’s all going to go to shit,” Hawke admitted. “And I’m going to try to keep people alive.”

No. Merrill’s fingers curled against Hawke’s bare skin, nails just barely catching her. She could not stand by this time. She refused to allow the death of someone else she loved. A long time ago, Merrill had accepted the end of her life. This time, if there was to be a cost, she would pay it in full before Hawke could step in.

“I don’t think pirates keep people alive much.”

Hawke laughed. She curled around Merrill, smiling with her whole body, her knees beaming against Merrill’s and her hand in love with the small of Merrill’s back. “We’ll be a different kind of pirate,” she promised. “We’ll be the kind of pirates that help people and kill people.”

Merrill tipped her head up, desperately seeking Hawke’s light. “Have you run that idea by Isabela?”

“She’ll get used to it.” Hawke nudged her nose against Merrill’s. “I’ve made her do so many selfless things here in Kirkwall that she’ll barely notice a few good deeds here and there on the seas.”

This time Merrill laughed, looping an arm around Hawke’s neck and reflecting her glow back at her until she ended up stretched out on top of Hawke, Hawke’s arm once again behind her head, Hawke looking up at her like she was the source of all this light. Merrill dropped her face, mouth pressed to Hawke’s shoulder and eyes squeezed tight where Hawke couldn’t see. Hawke ran her hand the length of Merrill’s bared spine, blankets pushed somewhere out of the way.

“So?” She kissed Merrill’s cheek. “What of it? Do you want to try being pirates?”

Merrill met Hawke’s eyes, faces so close they looked like eye. “I think I’d like that.”

Hawke’s lips alit on hers, brief as a whisper. “I think I’d like it too.”


End file.
